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I get slaughtered on Random Matchup Single Battle. Help me, please

Ok, so here's my problem.

I play single battles for fun on Wifi but I've won few times and lost countless times to these somehow ridiculously good Japanese players. I just want your general opinion on this team (Strategy, combinations, moves, etc.) and ideas on how I can tweak it.

Hydreigon is my favorite sweeper in OU and in Pokemon, overall. His Special Attacks is superb and its movepool can cover a wide variety of enemies. Dark Pulse gets STAB so its powered up even more. Fire Blast covers its Bug and Ice weaknesses. Draco Meteor and Superpower are more last resort or overkill moves for me.
I chose the Expert Belt because I score a lot of supereffective hits with Hydreigon and I could power them up even more for tankers like Blissey and Dusknoir (I didn't give it the Life Orb, and I'll explain later). However, Hydreigon is constantly outrun due to its Speed and it really doesn't like Fighting-Type Moves.

Not much I can say about Scizor. Item-wise, I'm not sure what to give it, so I gave it an Iron Plate to power up Bullet Punch. Anyway, Bullet Punch, in this metagame, is self explanatory. Superpower, I use as a last minute powerhouse, like Hydreigon; lowers Attack, but I get a ton of power. Bug Bite gets STAB and reaches a Power of at least 90, thanks to Technician. Also, the move eats berries and I like that.
Scizor is slow though and its Special Defense is shaky. One Fire Type Move will knock it right out, so that's why I found the Occa Berry useless.

Jellicent is an excellent Special Tank and can resist heavy Electric Hitters like Thunderbolt. My strategy against Fast Pokemon is to use Toxic and spam Recovers. I occasionally use a Shadow Ball or a Scald, if enemy is weak. For slower Pokemon, I follow the same routine except that I throw in some more Shadow Balls and Scalds. Jellicent has saved me on countlesss occasions and is probably the most reliable tanker I have ever used (Blissey disappointed me).

I still have a few problems, though. My strategy is changed when a Steel Pokemon comes out; Toxic is rendered useless and I have to hope for a burn with Scald.

This is my anti-Dragon Pokemon; it can outrun Garchomp and Salamence & OHKO with Ice Punch easily. Night Slash is for Psychics and Ghosts and used primarily for STAB. Swords Dance may not have been a good idea as Weavile can last up to 2 hits, if lucky. Low Kick has a story behind it but here's the summary: tankers and Mamoswine. I read that Low Kick can reach a power of 120 if the Pokemon is as heavy as Mamoswine. The Muscle Band was used in place of a Life Orb; I'll just say it now - I used it on a Salamence, which I am considering replacing.
Weavile has 2 super duper fatal flaw; so many weaknesses (Fire, Rock, Steel, Fighing and Bug). Also, this Pokemon is very bad defensively; you don't have to use a STAB move or supereffective move to take it out; yes, I know it's not a tank, but I use it as an Anti-Dragon Sweeper.

Ah, the classic Skamory; OU since RSE. This is a classic Skarmory build and I use this as a battlefield setup. This is also the only Physical Tank on my team (aside from Skarmory, but 1 Fire Move and it's OHKO). I put in Spikes and Stealth Rock because I was surprised at how much damage it could do; sure, it's unorthodox but I like the HP Advantage at the beginning. Roost restores my HP as a stall method to Physical Sweepers; Whirlwind makes use of the Stealth Rock and Spikes by automatically switching out.
I don't see much wrong with Skarmory aside from its bad Special Defense and the amount of Special Attack Fire Moves out there; I also learned that Skarmory is weak to Electric and not many Physical ones exist either. Aside from weaknesses, I love Skarmory.

Wow, this has been a disappointment. I see stuff saying Salamence one of the best Physical Sweepers out there; my god..this Pokemon is overrated. That or I'm using it wrong.
Anyway, aside from its severe allergy to Ice Moves and slightly low Defenses, Salamence has been useful a few times; I could OHKO Pokemon on those rare occasions and it is not a bad Dragon Dance user. This Pokemon's Speed is something to be reckoned with; it is one of the fastest Pokemon in the game next to Garchomp. This is the 2nd fastest Pokemon on my team next to Weavile. I'm probably being to harsh on Salamence but I'd like some suggestions for a replacement.

Anyway, this is my Random Matchup team (so far). I'd really appreciate your critiques; please, be as harsh as you like; I want to improve my team and play better on Wi-Fi

Let me start off by saying that I've noticed you've been in need of some assistance for Random Match Up battles. Unfortunately, the mechanics of the RMU meta is an entirely different ball game than normal play, however I often dabble there as well for practice, so I'll see if I can help you today.

Here's a list of straightforward simple changes you can make to improve right from the start:

Scizor: Protect>SwordsDance
Hydreigon: Mild>Naive nature to outpace Haxorus threats
Weavile: SwordsDance>IceShard
Skarmory: Spikes>BraveBird
Jellicent: Try Hex over Shadowball; I've run Hex and it does decent damage once the foe has been burned or poisoned
Salamence>Dragonite/Garchomp(?)

So to explain the reason behind Hydreigon's change, it is important to speed tie and outpace opposing Specs or LO Hydreigon and CB or (+0)DD Haxorus whenever possible. This is always a nice niche to have. However the loss in power might worry you, it is always good to know that it's always safer to outpace than worry of being outpaced.

The reason behind the change in Scizor's set is obvious enough. SwordsDance allows Scizor to double its Attack and become an intimidating and lethal weapon on your team. The CB bluff is well enough to allow Scizor to set up at least once on a switch.

Weavile is a very underrated Pokemon and I applaud your use of it. However, the use of SwordsDance without a Focus Sash is redundantly risky. Therefore, I suggest a powerful priority move be in its place, as Ice Shard is unique for handling Landorus(Incarnate & Therian form), Salamence and weakened Dragonite whom lack ExtremeSpeed or are Outrage locked.

To say the least, Skarmory seems a bit out of place, but if you are going to use it, I'd suggest BraveBird over Spikes. Dual hazards is somewhat impossible to have and effectively abuse against most experienced RMU regulars. BraveBird, even without investment, dents any Pokemon that does not resist it as well as dealing decent damage or even KO'ing threats like Bulk Up Conkeldurr, LO + Regenerator Mienshao and (last resort) Infernape & Volcarona.

The suggestion I made for Jellicent, again, comes from experience. I have personally tested Hex and it is very underrated as an option. Having both Scald AND Toxic, one is sure to land a status on the opponent, and consequently doubles the STAB Hex's damage to a consistent base 100 power against said opponent.

You want to replace Salamence, I see. Salamence is very much outclassed by Garchomp and/or Dragonite due to Garchomp's Base 102 Speed & Dragonite's Multiscale abuse. Lum Berry Dragonite's DD set may be very abusable here, while Garchomp can utilize its immunity to Electric attacks and resistance to Fire attacks to team up with Skarm, Scizor, Jellicent and occasionally Weavile. Scarfed Chomp is ultimately the best set I could suggest here, as you seem to be lacking a reliably fast Pokemon that can handle opposing Scarfed users effectively.

In closng, I wish you the best of luck with your team and I hope I was of sum assistance.

Last edited by CedOmega; 14th March 2013 at 1:18 PM.

When in doubt, fight harder...Never accept defeat as temporary satisfaction...Feel the HeatCheck out my latest RMT

Why u no use focus sash on Weavile?
Seeing how it has swords dance and everything.
But this is for wifi, and you might not be be able to get a sash that easily, replace swords dance with ice shard to get some priority to handle any Dragons who have already dragon danced and Landorus's forms and the Physically defensive behemoth that is Gliscor/Skarmory.

I don't know why Scizor has Protect, It won't work for scouting since in RMU, people don't really switch (at least in my experience) and will just attack with the same move again. It could work thought, to scout out the 4x fire moves and switch to a flash fire mon. I suggest a Chandelure with this set.

Switch from Scizor's scouted fire move to Chandy to get a free boost, trick to lock them into that fire move, which either forces a switch, or leaves them into set-up fodder for Chandy to obliterate

Think you should replace it over Skarmory, since hazards are albeit useless in RMU.

But if you still want hazards, and want to avoid having 2 ghosts, Ferrotorn over Jellicent with its ombined Iron Barbs+ Rocky helmet to really hurt Physical attackers. But to avoid 2 4x weaknesses, then Heatran.

Just some nitpicks over choices, And I don't know if you can get one, but MoxieMence is where it's at. DDance, Outrage, get boosted, then you're unstoppable. Give it a Lum Berry to prevent any burns that would cripple you and Outrage's confusion, giving you 4-6 turns of super-boosted rampage. You can use the same set and ev spread as you're current Salamence

Good luck on your wifi team, I know how annoying it is when on RMU, all you verse are really good Japanese players, no matter what time of day.

thanks for the tips man.
i actually chose Skarmory because of its physical defense and that it could set up entry hazards; I quickly realized that Skarmory was s--t; too slow and very weak to Fire and Electric.

I actually want a good Physical Wall as a replacement for Skarmory. Scizor works, but Fire is a problem. Another physical wall would work.

Physical wall? Well, Skarmory's the best, but if you don't like Skarmory Ferrothorn and Gliscor can do it fine. Ferrothorn, however, does not have reliable recovery (still a great Pokemon though), and pretty much NEEDS Leftovers and Leech Seed to be an effective wall. Or Wish support. Gliscor has worse typing, but it has a fantastic ability in Poison Heal. You might look at a set like

I'm using a Toxic Stall set on my Uber Sand team, it works great, but in OU Ice Fang over Toxic helps you much more what with the abundance of dragons and all.

A general rule I've come across is that if it works in Smogon OU it's good odds it works in RMU. The battlers there just aren't really as good, bar the occasional regular, as the Showdown or PO people (well, PO's Ubers ladder is a joke at lower ratings, but still)

all you verse are really good Japanese players, no matter what time of day.

Meh, try playing on a simulator. Almost everyone with a decent rating is better than the people you see on RMU.

Last edited by loco1234; 20th March 2013 at 4:56 AM.

"Whether Castform the Weather Pokemon can weather the weather is dependent on whether the weather that it's weathering is the proper weather for it to weather. Whether the opponent can weather the weather is also subject to whether the weather that it's weathering is the right weather to weather. Whether Castform can weather the opponent is once again dictated by the weather and whether that weather is the favorable weather for weathering. But most importantly, you should know whether there will be weather to weather rather than what weather they will be weathering and whether they can weather that weather."